The Energy Storage Industry Charges Up in Texas

Eric Wesoff is Editor-at-Large at Greentech Media. Prior to joining GTM, Eric Wesoff founded Sage Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields.

His expertise covers solar power, fuel cells, biofuels and advanced batteries. His strengths are in market research and analysis, business development and due diligence for investors. He frequently consults for energy startups and Silicon Valley's premier venture capitalists.

Ray Mabus, Secretary of the Navy, kicked off Day Two of the conference, saying that one of the basic issues confronting the armed forces is energy storage. "How do we take alternative energy and run it 24 hours a day? How do we construct a microgrid on a base? How do we store energy? Mabus said, "We're building hybrid ships," calling them the "Prius of the seas." The ship is in electric drive for speeds under 12 knots. He called the vessel an "energy hog" and noted that "laser weapons" and a "rail gun" must "store vast amounts of energy," releasing it instantly and charging very fast. "The limiting factor we have today is energy storage." Mabus also said, "I want to urge you to redouble your efforts. [...] The work that you're doing and purpose of this conference is crucial."

John Zahurancik, AES Storage president, said that energy storage "is right at the heart of our mission of moving toward clean power -- and that's about improving people's lives," adding, "Storage adds a new level of unbreakability and resilience."

Imre Gyuk, DOE Energy Storage program manager, told GTM that he sees the industry in a "gradual move toward energy systems. We have shown that frequency regulation can be cost-effective, but what is really needed is peak shaving, load management, etc. That suggests flow batteries." The energy storage stalwart expressed an "interest in energy storage safety. A few...disasters can still sink the industry." He said one of the big questions will be, "Are all these projects in California really improving the duck curve and doing what we expect them to do?"

Jon Wellinghoff, partner at Stoel Rives and former FERC chair, said that in a few years, the storage market will see "multiple proven technologies across new chemistries participating in multiple market structures."

Jacqueline DeRosa, Director of Emerging Technologies U.S. at Customized Energy Solutions, said, in a pre-conference workshop, that ancillary services are priced very low in CA. Spinning reserve in California is priced at about $3 per megawatt with non-spinning reserve at less than $1 per megawatt -- pricing that, DeRosa said, was not enough for a value proposition but instead could provide an added revenue stream.

Mike Berlinski, Senior Consultant Emerging Technologies at CES, noted that PJM has more than 130 megawatts of grid-connected advanced energy storage via batteries and flywheels. Berlinski said the highest value application and best opportunity in PJM is performance-based regulation, with payments as high as $40 per megawatt.

GTM toured Oncor's microgrid site in Lancaster, Texas, and as reported by Julia Pyper, "The grid-tied system consists of four interconnected microgrids and nine different distributed generation resources: two solar PV arrays, a microturbine, two energy storage units, and four generators. The system has a total peak capacity of 900 kilowatts." The microgrid switching, safety, and management hardware and software come from Schneider Electric and S&C Electric. The 200-kilowatt Tesla battery at the microgrid site has a large fan, along with an inverter from Princeton Power.

S&C Electric has shipped "nearly 200 megawatt-hours" of storage and deployed five battery chemistries since 2005. Troy Miller, manager of business development and marketing, and Jake Edie, business development director for power quality products, described a recent storage deployment in the Australian outback where twenty 25-kilowatt/4-hour systems were deployed for voltage support in a single wire earth return system architecture, used to power rural and remote sites. S&C also provided energy storage, switching, and protection gear to the Oncor microgrid. As for the storage market, "The policy shakeup is happening now in a dozen states," said Edie, adding, "Storage is on the path of becoming the third renewable energy storage deployment."

Ken Munson, the CEO of Sunverge, a firm focused on customer-sited storage (and a partner with SunPower), told GTM to expect "more talk about software in relation to energy storage management. " Munson stressed how important software is to "enabling the aggregation and orchestration of customer-sited behind-the-meter storage assets" and "unlocking value streams for the utilities and grid operators, as well as the energy consumer."

Alevo CEO Jean-Claude Beney said that his recently unstealthed firm is not a battery company but a "service provider" and a "Swiss army knife" for the grid. The 200-employee company expects to double its headcount in the next year, according to the CEO. As GTM has reported, the recently unstealthed battery firm claims its sulfur-based inorganic lithium-ion electrolyte chemistry has achieved 50,000 complete cycles without failure, without loss of power density, while operating at close to room temperature. Beney suggests that the production capacity of its new factory will be 480 megawatts in its first year.

Dale Bradshaw, a senior program manager at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, has an 11-kilowatt system on his roof in Florida along with 20 kilowatt-hours of lead-acid batteries. His electric bill went from $300 to $400 per month to about $27. But he acknowledged that it was "not economical" to add $16,000 worth of batteries. He said, "It appealed to my sense of self-reliance, a desire for choice, environmental stewardship, and to be able to live in comfort when the grid goes down." He added "Solar PV plus batteries makes sense when the price of electricity exceeds 29 cents per kilowatt-hour."

Executive Director of the ESA Matt Roberts told GTM, "It was great to have Jigar Shah, the Secretary of the Navy, and former Governor Jennifer Granholm here. There was a common thread in each of their presentations. Each drew attention to the need for a growing industry to continue to educate different audiences -- investors, big customers, and government leaders -- to better articulate and define the value proposition for storage in different applications."

Despite the preponderance of battery makers and battery integrators among the exhibitors at the show (AES, BYD, East Penn, FIAMM, NEC, Saft, Stem, Alevo, Ambri and others), there were some alternative storage technologies on display, as well. Those persistent flow-battery entrepreneurs were out in force, looking to outperform lithium-ion batteries in long-duration applications. Still building flow batteries are RedFlow, Sumitomo, ZBB Energy, Prudent Energy, Gildemeister, UniEnergy, Primus Power, Imergy, ZBB, EnStorage, and ITN. Highview Power Storage displayed its liquid air energy storage system.

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